UKIP – where do we go from here?

UKIP is at a critical juncture. We all know that. But the question is how to respond for the best.

All sorts of proposals are coming forth. Some are relying on a new leader. Some think policy is the way ahead. Others suggest we need to find a new issue to campaign on.

Then there are the constant challenges which always take up our time and attention – the mechanics of branch life and the latest upset in the party. Just now we have elections for both leader and NEC in the offing.

It all so easy to miss the essentials and fail to do the proper groundwork needed at a time like this.

Getting a new leader to rally the troops is just a first step. I suspect Paul Nuttall will be elected as the person best placed by experience, outlook and judgement to do this.

But then what?

The post Brexit world requires a post Brexit UKIP, and it will take more than a new leader to achieve that. It will take a common appreciation of what we need to do. And what we need to do is:

Take a good hard look in the mirror at what and where we actually are;

Determine what and where we should be, and go for it.

Now many are thinking we just need to go for the disaffected Labour vote. Let’s rally round the new leader and do it. With respect, that is just too superficial and fails to address the issues which have caused us to become almost irrelevant post June 23rd.

Yes, yes I know all about holding the Government to account over the terms and achievement of Brexit. Deadline Spring 2019 – then what?

We should have been in a dominant position to sideline Labour – but we are not. We should have a membership in six figures; we should have MSPs; we should have thousands of local councillors. We should have a team of MPs at Westminster.

We don’t have any of this. Reason: the party has been run with the wrong priorities, and the wrong priorities were the result of the wrong mentality and the wrong procedures.

The party has been run on crony lines for self interest. It has not been run as a democratic party going all out for its cause. Cronyism and self interest have attracted the wrong sort of person at the top – and that has led to scandal, time and time again. Cronyism led to the displacement of viable and known candidates in target seats at the 2015 GE. The result of national scandal and the over-ruling of local branch candidate selection was the reduction to just one MP – and his majority was slashed by two-thirds.

The vote was patently there – it was completely mishandled by people obsessed with spin in place of substance. That is why we have a leadership which cannot answer the question of our identity and what we stand for post Brexit.

So we need to root out cronyism and radically reform the authoritarian constitutional procedures by which these people have maintained themselves in power. Tomaz Slivnik’s resignation statement gives us all the evidence we need as to what actually happens at the top and why we are failing. We need to abolish the post of a dictatorial national chairman and disperse the chairman’s powers. We need to directly elect all the top officers every two years to make them constantly accountable. Right now they are appointments we know nothing about and which are used to bolster the chairman’s dictatorship. By the way, just where has our Party secretary, Matthew Richardson, been for the last nine months?

In fact we need a radically new constitution along the lines suggested by the campaign I run which blogs at therightwaycampaign

That constitutional proposal identifies exactly what we should stand for. This is crucial. To become a fully fledged political party is more than setting down a range of policies in a manifesto. It is to stand for one clear fundamental idea to which all can relate, readily. We all know what Labour stands for (or should), or the Conservatives or the Greens, or the SNP. There is one simple concept at the core of what they are and everybody can see it. And that core concept determines the development of policy. Policy must be consistent with core belief.

The only core concept the electorate sees about UKIP is that the Party is anti-EU.

Being anti on a single issue is the stuff of protest politics, otherwise called a campaign. Once the matter protested over is resolved, you pack your bags and go home. It’s all over. The campaign ceases to exist.

I submit that UKIP does not need to cease to exist or have relevance. I submit that UKIP is a proper political party which can and will respond to the challenges of the future – and I detail this at therightwaycampaign

It does not need to change its name, and it does not need to be groping about for a reason to exist. It has a core, identifiable and critically relevant idea and identity expressed in the one word: INDEPENDENCE.

When I voted to Leave the EU I was not just voting to get out of a discredited and undemocratic organisation. I was voting for something. I was voting for a free and self reliant United Kingdom. I was voting for INDEPENDENCE.

I was voting for my country to run its own affairs, I was voting for my country to be self sufficient and responsible. I was voting for our Parliament to be accountable – directly accountable – to us as tax payers for what it spends our money on. I was voting for democracy and the principle that government must act for the people, and do what the people want – not what the bureaucrats want, or the self righteous minority called the PC brigade want, but what ordinary, everyday people with normal everyday concerns and freedoms want.

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7 Comments

JackT
on February 25, 2017 at 12:19 am

The problem as I see it, admittedly as an outsider, is that the usual suspects are still in control of UKIP. Ray Catlin has warned of the issues many times in his blog at: https://therightwaycampaign.wordpress.com.
Of course those usual suspects thought that they knew better. Now I won’t be joining UKIP until there is change to allow the members some say in policy. I’m not sure that there is any salvation possible for UKIP particularly in the face of the constant targeting by most of the MSM.
Matters are not helped by the only MP who seems to pursue his own agenda rather than that of the party.
Maybe Paul Nuttall should not have contested Stoke and considered the possible consequence that he now faces. He will have to do a great deal to overcome the negative of the Hillsborough speech; maybe that task is beyond him. Perhaps our best hope lies in the emergence of a new Eurosceptic party with the radical policies we need to save our country.

JackT
on February 25, 2017 at 12:24 am

Strange – my comment was intended as a response to “Crocodile Tears” befor I saw this article, but somehow ended up here.

Robert Gage
on October 31, 2016 at 5:52 am

I personally believe the maxim “keep(ing) it simple” will reap dividends for UKIP as we work out where we go from here.
1. 2017-19 We’re not there yet! UKIP was phenomenally successful in its primary objective – getting us out of the EU. Now we need to make sure the U.K. gets a full value Brexit – and make sure the Governments delivers the same. This is UKIP’s primary objective.
2. During this time, there will be local and other elections. UKIP can espouse its excellent credentials both by reference to its role nationally with its Brexit role (point 1, above) and locally with its key selling point:: delivering local candidates able to independently serve the electorate, with UKIP values, with the backing of a major party. The emphasis will be on LOCAL!
3. 2020 – National election year, where our policies will emerge from both the 2015 manifesto and organically from our experiences from 2016-19.

We’ve got a future, but not if we get bogged down.

K J Ogilvie
on October 31, 2016 at 12:38 am

There are only three serious candidates for the leadership, the rest must be wealthy to be able to throw away £5000. Of the three it cannot be Evans. She is in Carswells pocket and he like Hamilton is out to destroy UKIP from within, so doing what cannot be done from without

I still fail to understand why you and others are convinced that Hamilton are out to destroy the party when he seems to be doing a good job in Wales. Where is the proof that he is doing that and that he even speaks to Carswell that often?

Paul Icini
on October 30, 2016 at 5:24 pm

OK Ray, so things have gone wrong and we have attracted a number of careerists, looking for a fast
track into ( or back to) politics. They were not all just self serving however and some were helpful.
To be honest the old UKIP did achieve it’s main goal. We won the referendum, a huge and nearly impossible task. Credit where it’s due. Now we must see proper Brexit is implemented, as well as evolving.

The thing we need most of all is unity, once we have a new leader he or she must be allowed time to settle in, form new and amend old policies, start looking outwards again rather than inwards. The Tories are great at doing exactly what they accuse us of, taking a few popular policies ( right now mainly stolen from us) and pretending to support them, the difference is we mean what we say, they don’t.
Give the new leader a fair chance, whoever it is and don’t moan if your choice is not elected.

Labour are very vulnerable just now and that won’t be the case for ever, it’s a crack we need to exploit but it may not be the only way forward. Our own right wing side want the old UKIP to continue as is and that’s not an option. Look at the Tories pre and post referendum, on the surface at least, a big change.

Personally I’m so keen to see the old parties displaced and shaken that I’ll work within whatever policy constraints our new management and party agree. It’s the only way to continue to move towards a better quality body politic.

Vivian Evans
on October 30, 2016 at 3:52 pm

A REQUEST FROM THE EDITORIAL TEAM TO ALL COMMENT POSTERS:

Please refrain from posting comments of a length approaching or even exceeding the standard length for articles published at UKIP Daily (750 -1000 words)!
We appreciate your contributions in the comments very much indeed, and thus would be happy to publish your lengthy comments and reflections as articles, submitted in the usual way.
Thank you very much,
Viv Evans, Editor-in-Chief

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